A Tale of Two Proms (Bard Academy) (19 page)

“How come you always give him the benefit of the doubt?” Lindsay asked.

“Because he’s earned it,” I said. “Do you know how many times he saved my life?”

“Yeah, but how often did he put it in danger in the first place.”

“This whole
island
is dangerous,” I said. “That’s not Heathcliff’s fault.”

We walked past the lake, down through the trees and through the small cave. I saw the cabin still standing there.

“What’s this?” Lindsay asked me.

“Heathcliff built it,” I said.

“Great, the house that Heathcliff built. You sure it’s safe?”

“Would you rather sleep outside all night?” The trees near us rustled, making us both jump. After a second, though, it was clear it was just the wind.

 Lindsay shook her head. 

I tried the door. It was locked, but Lindsay didn’t care. She picked up a rock nearby and broke a window and reached her hand through to undo the lock.

We stumbled inside and I felt around the table for the battery-powered lamp I remembered being there. My hands fell on it, and after a second of fumbling, I clicked the switch on. Light illuminated the cabin. I glanced around and saw the room was the same as I remembered from the night Heathcliff proposed. Everything was still here, including the food he’d left behind and the table and chairs, the typewriter, and the shelves of books. I plunked down my backpack and turned to shut the door behind me. I locked the bolt, even though the window was broken. It was a dumb thing to do, probably, but it made me feel better. I glanced out the windows at the trees in the distance uneasily. Something was out there. Whatever it was, I just hoped it was far, far away.

My stomach rumbled and I turned back to the stack of food. I grabbed one of the boxes of crackers that Heathcliff had left in the corner.

“Hungry?” I asked Lindsay, holding up the box.

“Starved,” she replied.

We ate the saltines in silence. I think we were both suffering from shock more than anything. Every time I tried to process what had happened my mind felt like a hamster on a wheel, just spinning in useless circles.

“I chickened out,” Lindsay said, suddenly, looking at the fire. I thought she meant running away from whatever that was in the woods out there.

“You didn’t chicken out,” I said. “There
was
something out there in the woods. I was scared, too.”

“No,” Lindsay said, shaking her head, and still staring at electric lamp. “I don’t mean…just now. I mean at the hospital.”

Oh. My mind clicked backward a few days.

“You mean like not going into Dad’s hospital room?”

Lindsay nodded. “I mean, I was so close to him, but when he really needed somebody…” she swallowed the rest of her sentence as if it was too bitter to taste. “I guess I’m not really a very good daughter.”

I laughed out loud at this. Lindsay? She was the ultimate kiss-up/do-gooder and our parents’ hands-down favorite.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

Lindsay’s bottom lip started to tremble. She wasn’t kidding.

“Hey,” I said, softening. “You’re a great daughter. Dad loves you. He loves you way more than he loves me.”

“Yeah, but you were
there
for him. You brought him back from the coma. I just sat in the waiting room – too scared to go in. What does that make me?”

“A daughter who cares about her dad and doesn’t want to see him sick or dying. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s crazy to see Dad all weak like that. And, anyway, you did go in.” Lindsay hugged herself in front of the fire.

“Yeah, after the worst was over.”

“Lindsay, you were there when he needed you. When he woke up. Besides, all I did when I went in there was told him to quit being so selfish. And then his heart gave out!”

“When you put it like that…” Lindsay smiled at me.

“Anytime you need someone to make you feel like a better daughter, I am totally there for you.”

Lindsay laughed a little at that. She glanced around the room. She eyed the books and the typewriter and the food.

“Heathcliff built this for you, didn’t he?”

When I didn’t deny it right away, Lindsay took my silence for confirmation.

“I knew it!” Lindsay glanced around. “So this is like your love shack, or what?”

“It’s not like that,” I protested.

Lindsay spied the small single bed in the corner of the room. She jumped up and sat on it, bouncing on creaking springs. “Oh,
Heathcliff
…oh, don’t stop!” She made ridiculous grunts and groans and managed to sound like a hippo pinned under a log.

“Would you stop it!” I crumpled up a piece of blank paper and threw it at her. “Nothing like that ever happened in here.”

“I’m just saying—it’s convenient,” Lindsay said, eyeing the room. “Wait until Mom and Dad hear about this!” She got a distinctly devilish look in her eye. Lindsay always did when she planned to tattle.

“You can’t tell them.”

“Why not?” She hopped up and grabbed
Wuthering Heights
from the shelf. I lunged at her to grab it back, but she danced away from me.

“Lindsay! You’re seriously going to tell on me when I
just
made you feel better about Dad?”

“Well, that’s what sisters are for, aren’t they?”

“You can’t tell.” My voice was serious and solemn.

“Why not?”

“Because this is supposed to be a secret.”

“Well, duh.” Lindsay rolled her eyes.

“No, I mean it. This isn’t a love whatever you called it. Heathcliff asked me to live here with him after graduation.”

Lindsay stared at me with confusion. “You can’t live here with him. You’re not…”

“He asked me to marry him.”

Lindsay couldn’t have looked more shocked if I’d told her I planned to go to clown college after graduation.

“But…wait….” Lindsay shook her head as if she was hoping to shake out some of the surprise. “He can’t do that. Can he?”

I shrugged. “He did.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“I said I’d think about it.”

“Think about it! Miranda, are you insane? You can’t live here. You’ve got to graduate and go to college.” Lindsay paused. “You did get into college didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” I felt in my other pocket for the college acceptance letter. “I got into Penn.”

Lindsay’s mouth dropped open. She didn’t say anything for a long minute. When she found her voice, she was nearly shouting. “You got into
Penn
and you’re sitting around thinking about marrying a fictional guy from
Wuthering Heights
?” She waved the book in her hand again. I tried to grab it, but she held it away from me. “You can
not
be serious.”

“Look, I love Heathcliff. But…” I stretched for the book, but Lindsay strong-armed me. She always had more muscle than I did. It didn’t help in situations like these when she was playing her own version of “keep away.”

“I know, I know. But can you really stay here on this island alone with him? Here?”

Lindsay gestured around the small room. I’d been thinking the same thing. It was kind of claustrophobic at the moment. It didn’t seem so small when it was just me and Heathcliff, and Lindsay was half his size. Maybe it was just Lindsay’s larger-than-life personality. Or the fact she was badgering me with too many sensible facts.

“You’re
eighteen
, Miranda. You’re too young to get married. I don’t care what happens in those other books you read.” I didn’t expect a lecture about being too young to settle down from my fifteen-year-old sister. “This is crazy. You can’t stay. You’re too young to make a decision like this that will affect the
rest of your life.
”

“Lindsay, any decision I make right now will affect the rest of my life,” I said. “That’s what being eighteen
is all about
.”

“Yeah, but Miranda, there are some decisions you can’t change. There are consequences to everything. If you stay on the island with Heathcliff… how can you ever do anything else? It’s not like picking a college. You go to Penn and if it doesn’t work out you can
transfer to another school
. If things go south with Heathcliff are you going to transfer to another haunted island with another fictional boyfriend?”

I sighed. I hated it when Lindsay made sense.

“I haven’t decided anything,” I said. “I’m just thinking about it. That’s why you can’t say anything to Mom or Dad…or
anyone
.”

Lindsay let out a gruff sound of frustration. She was protesting being sworn to secrecy on something so big. 

“You can’t do it,” she said. “You cannot do this. You don’t even know if you can
trust
him or not.”

“I can trust him,” I said. Now, I was just feeling defensive.

“It’s insane, Miranda. Would you still be considering marrying him if you found out he did all this to Bard? Could you do that?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Marrying Heathcliff and setting up house in a cabin on a haunted island. I mean, that is the single worst horror movie pitch I ever heard. Even Wes Craven wouldn’t make that one. Nobody would believe the premise.”

“Lindsay,” I scolded. “Just leave it alone.” I lunged forward and grabbed the book back from her. She had given up trying to keep it from me anyway.

“Fine,” Lindsay huffed and crossed her arms across her chest, her lower lip jutting out in a pout. She glared at me, as if I’d told her I’d never see her for another Christmas again. And maybe…I wouldn’t. Is that what living here in this cabin with Heathcliff would cost me?

I looked down at the old book in my hand and turned it over in my fingers. The binding was smooth, the leather felt almost alive under my touch. I was thinking again about the power held in this book, when it dawned on me that this book and the others on the shelves were the
only ones left from the vault.
I looked at the titles:
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Jane Eyre, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, A Tale of Two Cities
and, of course, the one in my hand. I let it fall open and I glanced at the first page.

Then, another thought occurred to me.
A Tale of Two Cities
and
Wuthering Heights
were both here. Heathcliff had access to them both. The evidence was stacking up against him.

“I know you like to read, Miranda, but is now the best time?” Lindsay asked.

“These aren’t just any books,” I reminded her. “They’re from the vault. They might be able to help us.” I lay them on the table. I scanned the first chapter, hoping to find a clue. I really wanted to find something that told me Heathcliff wasn’t responsible. I wasn’t sure I could, but it was worth a try. He wasn’t here to defend himself.

 Lindsay picked up the copy of
The Great Gatsby
and flipped open to a random spot in the middle.

“What are we looking for?” she asked me.

“Anything that doesn’t belong,” I said, suddenly remembering Parker telling us about Catherine wanting to improve the classics. These books had to be a clue to what she was doing.

Lindsay glanced down at her page and then back up at me. “You mean like a character named ‘Samir’?”

“Wait…what?” I scrambled over to Lindsay’s side and grabbed the sheet. “There’s no Samir in the original
Great Gatsby
.”

“There is in this one.” Lindsay held up the page and pointed to Samir’s name. “Right there. Samir Gatsby.”

We both stared at the letters. They were there, unmistakable, in black typeface.

 You thinking what I’m thinking?”  Lindsay and I just looked at each other for a minute.

“Samir was transported into this book.”

“It’s what Catherine wanted,” Lindsay said. She cleared her throat, peered at the page and began reading. “…on the first night I went to Samir Gatsby’s house, I was one of the few guests who’d actually been invited. People were not invited—they went there…Sometimes they came and went without having met Samir Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission…”

As she read, the light in the room grew brighter. At first, I thought it was the electric lamp, but then I realized that a portal was opening up in the middle of the room. It began as a tiny slit, and it grew longer and brighter. The bright white circle expanded as I watched, and through it, on the other side, I saw a pool lit by lanterns, its blue water catching the light. There were people crowded around it. They were drinking and laughing and dancing and dressed like it was a roaring ‘20s party.

It was the exact scene Lindsay was describing from the book.

 “Lindsay, look.” I was on my feet now. Lindsay stopped reading at stared at the glimmering portal.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s
The Great Gatsby
.” Lindsay glanced up and saw what I did, a massive estate, a shining blue swimming pool and the crowd from the party. “What? Is the Great Gatsby about a prom, too?” Lindsay asked.

“Ha. Ha. Funny,” I said. “Not a prom, just a party. Wait, look—Samir!” Lindsay and I both saw him at once. He was wearing a tuxedo and he was walking around his pool, talking to his guests.

“Samir!” I shouted. But he didn’t hear me. And he didn’t see me, either. And then, as we watched, the portal started to close. The window was getting smaller and with each passing second. I stood. “I’m going in to get him.”

“Yeah, but how will you get out?” Lindsay asked me.

“With
your
help,” I said. “Give me five minutes. Then, read the same lines you just read, and open the portal again.”

“But, Miranda…” Lindsay’s eyes were full of doubt. None of us had tried this before. Usually fictionally characters came into our world. None of us had experimented with using the portal to go the other way. But I realized it was the only way to find and save Samir. He was my friend and I owed it to him to try.

“Five minutes,” I said, and then I squeezed through the shrinking window, just as it closed behind me. Suddenly, I wasn’t in my jeans anymore. I was in a red, low-waist dress and matching shoes. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the pool and nearly didn’t recognize myself. I was wearing a lot of make-up and a glittering headband with a feather sticking out of it. My hair had been lopped off, too, and it was chin-length, with carefully arranged finger waves down the side of my face.